As Rachel points out, the first one is pretty conventional. The second one is a killer. Have a look:
Tag Archives: Clinton
West Virginia Democratic Primary UPDATED
I’ll combine my post predicting the outcome of today’s Democratic Primary in West Virginia, and my post giving and discussing the results, here.
My prediction is on this table, on the left side of the line, and the actual results on the right side, for the last several primaries.
Every state is special, and some are more special than others. West Virginia has 29 pledged delegates, but not all of them were assigned today. I assume they will be assigned later. Thus, the slight difference in numbers between what I predicted and what happened.
A key message here is this. Clinton and Sanders did exactly as well in the West Virginia primary as my model predicted, and that has been very close to exactly true for most primary races all along.
There is something important about this likely win that I want to point out.
According to many (but not all) of those pushing the candidates on climate change, Sanders is THE man when it comes to climate, and Clinton will be throwing the planet under the bus the moment she is elected. The degree of contrast between Sanders and Clinton in the minds of many leading climate activists is an overstatement, and highly inaccurate. Both candidates have stated that we need to come to the point where we keep the fossil Carbon in the ground, but Sanders is the only candidate who has come out with a weakened version of this, where we only try to attain 80% non-fossil fuel use by the middle of the century. Sanders wants to make fracking illegal, which he is unlikely to be able to do, while Clinton wants to regulate it into near nothingness, which could be achieved in a year or so. On the other hand, Clinton did say to a coal miner the other day that we have to find a way to keep mining coal as long as it does not add CO2 to the atmosphere. Sure, let’s do that! But first, we’ll have to change physics, because we GET energy from releasing fossil Carbon, but we have to USE energy to re-attach the Carbon to something solid.
In other words, neither candidate is where they need to be on climate change, and we will have to work to make that situation change. But, if you ask most people, they will probably tell you that Sanders is the climate change guy, and Clinton not so much. But we also know that addressing Climate Change means, essentially, shutting down the main industry in West Virginia, which is coal mining.
So why is Sanders beating Clinton in West Virginia?
I’ll put the results of the primary below later this evening or tomorrow morning. I’ll be busy during the time the returns are coming in, visiting with my friend Emo Phillips, but I’ll update the post at a later time.
After the Primaries, What Next?
Donald Trump is now the presumed Republican candidate for President of the United States. Prior to Cruz and Kasich dropping out of the race, it was not 100% clear that Trump would achieve enough delegates to “lock” the convention, but he was vey close. I am not sure if Trump will be the only candidate on the ballot for the remaining GOP primaries. Had Cruz and Kasich remained in the race, my estimate was that Trump would be about six delegates short of a lock, but even if those candidates are still listed on some future ballots, it seems likely now that Trump will win enough delegates to go into the Republican National Convention with the required 1237 votes to take the nomination.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is far enough ahead in the Democratic Primary process to enter the convention with a commanding lead over Bernie Sanders, though not enough to lock the convention from pledged delegates. However, she has plenty of unpledged delegates that are highly likely to support her. So even if Clinton goes into the convention with less than a lock with pledged delegates, she will still win the nomination on the first ballot.
So, broadly speaking, there are two possible outcomes between now and election day. 1) Trump represents the Republicans and Clinton represents the Democrats in the general election; or 2) Something else happens.
What are the alternatives?
All of the possible alternatives have to do with the Republican Party. I’ll go over them here, but this is a rough list and there are many things to be considered deep in the details. If you have information that modifies or precludes any of this, please put it in the comments.
The Republican National Convention Goes Rogue
It is not entirely clear that the Republicans, at the convention, are required to simply vote in a ballot with pledged delegates casting their preference for the expected candidate. That is required by a rule of the convention, and the rules of the convention don’t exist until they are voted on at the outset of the convention. It is possible that the rules could be changed, and all of the delegates could be released to vote for whomever they want on the first ballot. I am fairly certain that there is not a hard and fast way to prevent this, even though it would be very messy to do so.
If that happened, Trump would probably not get a majority of votes on the first ballot, simply because other candidates, especially Cruz, have played a better ground game than Trump in several states. A good number of the delegates pledged to Trump will jettison The Donald the first chance they get.
This will not bring an alternative candidate to a majority position, or even close. But it would allow the convention to proceed pretty much as though the entire Republican Primary season never happened. Likely it would allow any name to be entered into the nomination.
If, at the start of the convention, the pledged delegate rule is changed or thrown out, expect a strategy to be in place, for one or two candidates not including Trump (and, likely, not including Cruz either) to be nominated. In other words, for this extreme event to happen, there will likely be people in the party with a plan to nominate someone in particular. My money is on Paul Ryan, but that is mainly because he is so adamant on not being a nominee for president, which is a sure sign with Ryan that he wants to be a nominee for president.
An Full On Independent (third party) Candidacy Emerges
Is is possible for a third party candidate, running as an independent, to emerge from the apparent wreckage of the Republican Party. This would have to happen before the convention.
In order for an independent candidate to run, it is generally the case that a petition with a set minimum number of names has to be submitted to the state authorities before a certain deadline. A few deadlines are in June, many in July, but I think most are in August. To get a name on every state’s ballot (plus DC) about 880,000 signatures in total would have to be obtained. This would also require all the efforts in each state to pick one candidate to get behind, presumably. This is extreme, but doable, and if it is going to be done, you’ll know about it soon because those petitions would start circulating within the next few weeks.
A Spoiler Independent Candidate Emerges
The independent candidate does not have to be on all of the state’s ballots to affect the election.
Assume that Hillary Clinton is going to beat Donald Trump, and thus, in a two way race, achieve an electoral majority. But, also, assume that some people who would vote for Clinton over Trump would vote for an independent candidate rather than Clinton. If this could be forced in just one state or two, that could put Clinton at below 50% of the electoral vote, beating Trump who would also be below 50% of the electoral vote.
This would mean that the Electoral College would not be able to chose a candidate, and the decision goes to the House of Representatives.
But could you really do this? Because the Electoral College is generally winner take all, the spoiler candidate has to get a majority vote in a state to take those Electors away from the main candidates. But, since this strategy would emerge among Republicans and their ilk, but be directed against Clinton, that would require getting a LOT of Clinton voters to switch to the third party candidate.
There are some indications that a double digit percentage of Sanders supporters (between 10 and 20%) are “Bernie or Busters.” One might assume that there are more Bernie or Busters in states Bernie Sanders won in. This would have to be a state Clinton is likely to win in during the General, since the idea is to take away some of her Electoral votes. So, such states could be targeted with the independent candidate. Perhaps the independent candidate could even run a campaign that would specifically appeal to former Sanders supporters. Sanders won plenty of small states where a huge effort might allow an independent to grab those electoral votes. If the difference between Trump and Clinton is small enough, Clinton’s majority could be forced below 50% with one state.
Nebraska and Maine do not have winner take all rules. Sanders won both states, but Nebraska is red, while Maine is blue. I’m going to guess that the Bernie or Bust movement is at least average-strong if not very strong in Maine. Maine has 4 electoral votes, so even winning the entire state would not take a lot of Clinton votes away, but the point is that a number from 1 to 4 could be removed from her column in Maine.
Among blue states, Sanders did well this primary season so far in Hawaii, Minnesota, Washington, and Michigan, and a few others. He will likely do well in California. So, using the idea that states where Sanders dis well in the primary are ripe for picking off Clinton with a third party, a focus on Michigan (16 electoral votes), California (55 electoral votes) and a couple of others might work. However, these larger, bluer, states are less likely to be fooled into voting for an independent.
A better strategy might be two work the marginal states where Sanders did well. These are states that Clinton could win, but where the right third party candidate could take that win away. Florida comes to mind. Imagine a strong Florida candidate running as the independent. Even better might be a coalition of smaller Sanders-favoring not too blue states, such as Wisconsin.
(Yes, you may be thinking at this moment that this strategy could be run for Sanders himself, but remember, the strategy here is to take a few electoral votes away from Clinton so a Republican House gets to decide the outcome of the election.)
In any event, there is probably an analysis one could do that estimates Clinton’s electoral lead, then finds states where Clinton would likely win but where a third party candidate could take that lead away from her, which add up to enough electoral votes to manage this, and then find the right candidate. I’m fairly sure that somebody in the GOP is working out these numbers as we speak.
The House proportions itself out to 50 votes, one for each state. (DC is left out of the process). The majority of members in a state must agree on a candidate, or that vote is simply lost (i.e., if there is a tie among members of the house for a given state). Obviously, this gets pretty complicated. A state with mostly members of one party might vote for that party’s candidate, but if there is a third candidate, that could split out the majority causing the other party’s candidate to win, or causing a tie, in a few states.
If the House is unable to elect a president, this goes tot he Senate.
By the way, the Congress that would be doing all this is the newly elected one. So, that might be a Republican House, or maybe not. It might be a Democratic Senate. Or maybe not.
Electors Go Rogue
The Electors in the Electoral College, from most states, are required to vote en masse (winner take all) for the candidate that won that state’s popular vote. (There are a few exceptions.) But the Federal system does not require this, and from the point of view of the national election, the Electors can do what they want. The states compel the electors to follow the state’s rule with various threats, possibly including jail time, often a fine. However, it is not clear that these threats can be carried out. This has not been tested sufficiently in court. Were it to be tested, it might be tested in the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court is short a Justice, so who knows how that will go.
It is also conceivable that rogue electors would not be punished if they went rogue this year. It is even conceivable that some rogue electors will be given a ticker tape parade.
But what would these electors do? They could ignore a third party candidate that happened to win their state, or they could vote for the minority candidate because they can’t stomach the majority candidate.
If something like this happened, this might be the year we see a serious movement to amend the part of the Constitution that specified the Electoral College. Then, we can witness the fight between the small states (they benefit from the current system) and large states!
Probably none of this will happen. Probably, Trump will be anointed at the convention (after a few broken bones and maybe a few shots fired). Clinton will mop the floor with him in November. But, who knows?
I do expect an outcry from various quarters to reform both the primary and election processes. I expect that outcry to die down and be forgotten, but a few reforms to be put in place in the Democratic Party anyway, because people in the party are already part of that outcry. And,really, the big question is what is going to happen in Congress this year, and in two years. Don’t lose sight of that very important question.
Climate Or Bust: Sanders and Clinton Should Step Up Now
This is a guest posts by Claire Cohen Cortright.
Claire Cohen Cortright is a mother, climate activist, and biology teacher living in upstate New York. She
is an active member of Citizens Climate Lobby and moderator at Global Warming Fact of the Day.
It is time, now, for climate activists to get vocal.
As it becomes more clear that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, there is increasing talk about the importance of unifying the party. Negotiations are on the horizon … for Vice President and for the Party’s policy platforms.
Now, we must be sure climate change and carbon cutting policy are part of those negotiations.
Consider, for a moment, as Bernie Sanders begins to make demands in exchange for his support, what he will insist upon. What are the key policies will he insist be incorporated into the Democratic Party platform?
His campaign’s latest email provides a likely answer to this question:
“What remains in front of us is a very narrow path to the nomination. In the weeks to come we will be competing in a series of states that are very favorable to us – including California. Just like after March 15 – when we won 8 of the next 9 contests – we are building tremendous momentum going into the convention. That is the reality of where we are right now, and why we are going to fight for every delegate and every vote. It is why I am going to continue to speak to voters in every state about the very important issues facing our country. Our country cannot afford to stop fighting for a $15 minimum wage, to overturn Citizens United, or to get universal health care for every man, woman, and child in America.” (Emphasis mine).
Notice what is missing?
The single most important issue of our day. The single biggest threat to national security.
Climate change.
Climate activists have been insisting that climate change be made the top level priority for all campaigns and all elected officials. It is possible that this activism has failed to varying degrees with respect to both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns. That means it comes down to us to insist that meaningful carbon cuts are at the top of the platform.
Hillary Clinton critics are right. Hillary has wrongly called gas a bridge fuel. She absolutely needs to be pushed to make it her goal, and that of the Democratic Party, to END the use of gas and all other fossil fuels. She has good solid plans to regulate fracking. Those policies will drive up the cost of gas and therefore send price signals that, in the absence of a price on carbon, will drive us toward other sources of energy. But it is essential that we have the stated goal of ending gas. That will set the stage for the essential conversations about how we will replace that gas without turning off the lights and heat. Efficiency, lifestyle changes, renewables, and, yes, nuclear.
Bernie Sanders’ stated policy is allow nuclear plant licenses to lapse. If nuclear plants close now, they are likely to be replaced with gas. He has said that he isn’t closing the plants now, just allowing for them to close by attrition. However, the reality is that nuclear plants are already closing now, before their licenses lapse, because electricity is so cheap that regular maintenance is economically unfeasible. Part of that calculation is lifetime return. If you know you won’t be relicensed in 2025, it is all the more reason not to do 2017’s maintenance and instead close down. And once a nuclear plant is mothballed, it’s done. You can’t just refurbish and turn it back on, like you can with gas and coal. Unfortunately, there is little political will to take on the nuclear issue within the party at this point. Maybe that means we can simply accept Hillary’s approach to leave nuclear alone. Perhaps her political calculation on nuclear was simply on target.
Perhaps the one thing all climate activists can agree to demand in these negotiations is a carbon tax. Hillary Clinton has had, for many months, a vague, buried reference to carbon markets in her policy platform.* People have made little mention of it, simply saying she doesn’t support carbon taxes. Why not highlight that she seems to support carbon pricing, insist that she become more vocal about it, and push her to explain why she is supporting cap and trade over taxes? As that conversation unfolds, she will be forced to address the distinctions, and, at the same time, the electorate will become more knowledgeable about carbon pricing. At the end of the day, the party platform may end up with a clear carbon price plan.
Whatever climate policies end up in the Democratic Party Platform, it is clear that climate activists must put aside the horse race between Clinton and Sanders and remember that neither of them go far enough. Neither is prepared to get to zero emissions by 2050. Neither sees climate as the single most important issue to address.
It is time for climate voters and climate activists to demand that the Democratic Party serve up more than fiery rhetoric from Sanders and more than visionless bridge fuels from Clinton.
It is time to demand the best from each of them and ensure they don’t simply offer up their worst on climate.
*Here is her vague buried reference to clean energy markets:
“Clean Power Markets: Build on the momentum created by the Clean Power Plan, which sets the first national limits on carbon pollution from the energy sector, and regional emissions trading schemes in Canada, Mexico, and the United States to drive low carbon power generation across the continent, modernize our interconnected electrical grid, and ensure that national carbon policies take advantage of integrated markets.” source
“Southern” Voters Prefer Clinton, Others Mixed
How does the “southernness” of a state affect the Democratic Primary?
Clinton has been doing well in “The South.” Of course, defining what “The South” is is pretty tricky. I divided up the states by “Deep South” vs. Other, so all the usual orginal deep south states count as “southern” except Florida. You know what they say about Florida. “The farther south you go, the farther north you get.” Also, Texas is not deep south in the traditional sense.
Using this rough division, Clinton wins all the time in the “Deep South” and Sanders wins some and loses some in the other states, as shown in this handy dandy graphic:
This is good news for Sanders, because the three big states coming up are New York, Pennsylvania, and California, and they are not in the deep south. Of the remaining states, only Kentucky is southern. So, this biases future primaries, given this one variable, towards Sanders.
Being “deep south” vs. not is in and of itself a bit of a meta-variable, associated with other factors with in the Democratic Party, mainly ethnicity.
Democratic Primary and Size of State
When either candidate wins a state, that candidate’s supporters celebrate and underscore the significance of that win. The other candidate’s supporters generally proceed to explain how it was not a significant win, or in some cases, come up with conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen.
So, here is an interesting question: Does one candidate or another, between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, tend to win bigger states more, or smaller states more? This is important because next Tuesday is the New York Primary, and New York is huge. Of course, state size is not the only factor, and indeed, state size is probably related to a lot of other factors that may be more directly related. Still, it may be interesting to see what this all means.
Some of the largest states are in the future (New York, Pennsylvania, and California). The largest states, on average, are ahead with a very sightly higher median, and a more impressively larger mean. Here are the stats:
And here is a histogram, showing the size distribution of states (delegate count) so far and not yet voting in this primary season:
Large states matter more, numerically. If a candidate has a very small bias towards winning big states, but the two candidates otherwise split the wins, the candidate with the bias wins. More concretely, imagine each candidate wins or loses by 10%, and the distribution of wins and losses is exactly even for both candidates, but one candidate wins the largest three states and the other candidate wins the smallest three states, then a very substantial gap will result between the candidates. In a winner take all scenario, in this race, with Clinton winning the largest states and Sanders winning the smaller states, this would result in a final pledged delegate count of about 1406 for Sanders and 2306 for Clinton!
So, does one candidate win more in large states? Yes. Here is state size (as number of pledged delegates) against the percent difference between the candidates with Clinton upward on the graph, Sanders downward on the graph.
Clinton won, so far, the four biggest states and the fifth biggest state was a near tie. (Clinton also won more small states, but the effect of large states is greater, as noted).
Does this, by itself, mean that Clinton is going to win New York and California? No, of course not. This is just one factor, and as noted, probably relates or correlates to other factors such as diversity, various kinds of activism, overall political gestalt in the state, and so on.
Democratic Primary: 2008 vs. 2016 Delegate Math
There is some discussion about Bernie Sanders’ strategy for winning the nomination despite being significantly behind in the pledged delegate count. Most of this discussion is nearly worthless because those engaged in it (talking and listening) are, or seem, poorly informed about how the system actually works. So I thought this would be a good time to look at some of the numbers.
First, some context.
The primary process is not Constitutionally democratic. There is no legal requirement that a party nominate someone based on any sort of voting process. But, over the last several decades this has become normal. Having said that, it is also a vetting process. The reason primaries are held over a long course of time is not because no one can figure out how to get all the party’s participants to vote on the same day. Rather, it is a long and drawn out contest in which the different candidates make their respective arguments using various venues, and as this process happens, party participants vote, in groups, for one or the other. It is like a boxing match. There are several rounds and we see how the candidates do over time.
This varies across states (and between the parties, and across time), but the ways in which party participants express their opinions are myriad. There are two ends of a wide spectrum. One is to simply ask people who claim, or demonstrate (depending on state) that they are with, a member of, or associated with a particular political party which candidate they prefer, in a polling process that looks just like an election. That is a primary. At the other end of the spectrum, people gather in public spaces and go through a formalized ritual involving holding up signs, standing on furniture, yelling and wildly gesticulating, and moving around the room, and often electing or choosing a subset of individuals to represent the views of the larger number in that room. Then, usually, they do it again at a later date in a different room. Sometimes a few times. That is sometimes correctly referred to as a caucus.
But a primary and a caucus are not two distinct things. Many contests are somewhere in between. In Iowa, it goes much as I just described. In Minnesota, where we have a caucus system, it doesn’t work that way at all and is much more like a primary where people simply vote.
Party members and operatives may prefer the caucus system because it gets people involved, and also, exposes and allows discussion on a wider range of issues. A party can, and often does, define itself on the basis of issues, and without a caucus system, the issues are defined by a very small number of individuals, often not even directly involved with the party. For example, for the Republican Party, the issues are mostly defined by radio shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News network commentators.
But a caucus system may have the effect of limiting participation, excluding those who can’t make the caucus schedule, for whom an absentee ballot is the only way to vote, etc. That is an argument for dropping the caucus and using primaries instead. But, of course, the counter argument to that is that the caucus invites real, meaningful participation. Which sounds great in theory, until you go to a caucus and notice that only a few people are actually meaningfully participating. But, at least, someone is somewhat meaningfully participating.
There are many other things going on that matter. For example, are you under the impression that people who might participate in a primary or caucus are registered in a particular political party? And, if you are registered in a certain party, you have to change your registration to participate in a different party’s process? Well, that may be true for you, but it depends on which state you live in. For example, in Minnesota, you can’t register in a party. We simply do not do that here. Yet, in Minnesota, you must be with the party to participate. You sign off on a general agreement with the party’s principles, and you agree to participate in only one party’s activities in a given caucus cycle. Yet you don’t register. If this seems odd or even impossible, perhaps you live in New York State or some other place where one formally registers.
The different versions of “party membership” leads to a great difference in what can happen during the primary process. The following pertain.
When you go to vote or caucus,
1) Do all the people go to the same building, regardless of political party? (In some states, yes, in other states, no.)
2) Once you get there, do you have to vote or caucus in the party that you are already registered in, or can you chose at the last second?
3) If you are not registered, or if (as in some cases can happen) you are “registered as an independent”, are you excluded from participating in a particular party’s contest, or not?
4) Is your primary or caucus also the day on which actual constitutional candidates or issues are on a ballot — the official government run ballot, not the party ballot — or is this just a party thing? (Some states often do this, some states never do this, and it affects who shows up.)
4) How does “open” vs. “closed” (able or not able to switch at the moment of the primary) relate to “primary” vs. “caucus” in your state?
We often see it remarked that Sanders does better in caucus states, or in open states, etc. etc. This might be partly true, but given that the following kinds of contests theoretically exist, it is a great oversimplification.
I quickly add that not all these combinations exist, but many do, and even this accounting does not fully reflect all of the actual variation. For example, the exact ways that state-wide pledged delegates are allocated also varies across states, and that variation adds even more complexity. And, two different states may have different ways of allocating delegates, but whether or not the campaigns engage in these methods varies from year to year. For example, in Nevada this year, the Sanders campaign engaged in a ground game to capture more support after the caucus system passed through its first phase, but in Minnesota, as far as I know, neither campaign bothered. That was probably not a strategic difference, but rather, a reaction to the fact that allocation works ever so slightly differently in each of these two caucus states.
There is a reason that political experts like Rachel Maddow have highly specialized lawyers to give overviews of this sort of thing when they want to try to get it right!
Then there is the issue of pledged vs. unpledged delegates.
The following commonly held beliefs are incorrect about this issue.
1) “Superdelegates” exist only in the Democratic party. Not true.
2) “Superdelegates” declare which candidate they will vote for prior to the convention, and thus, can be counted as part of that candidate’s vote total. Not true.
3) “Superdelegates” are members of the party elite who are not responsible to the citizens or voters. Not true.
4) “Superdelegates” destroy democracy and ruin everything for everybody. Not true. Maybe a little true.
5) There is no reason to have “Superdelegates” other than for the party elite to control the outcome of a primary. Mostly not true.
Superdelegates (an unofficial term for unpledged delegates) exist because of the 1968 and 1972 Democratic Party Conventions. In 1968 all hell broke loose, and one of the problems was the perception that the nomination was mainly the product of back room politics. So a fully democratic process was deployed for 1972. But in that years, the Republicans played dirty tricks (remember Watergate?) on the Democrats and messed up the process. So, it was decided that a certain number of delegates should be responsible and involved individuals who were held accountable by the fact that they were elected to their jobs (either as constitutional officers or party officers) or otherwise potentially held in esteem or contempt based on their behavior, and that these delegates would not be pledged as part of the primary and caucus process. They would be the control rods available to fix things when things broke because of murder, dirty tricks, scandal, or any unforeseen event.
Superdelegates do not pledge for a candidate, but they are people, and more to the point, they are politicians. And Americans with First Amendment rights. So, it is easy to understand how many would want to endorse a particular candidate for the party’s nomination, and one could argue that there is no reason to stop them from doing it, and there is no legal way to stop them. Having said that, many Superdelegates choose to not endorse, because they feel, as many do, that their role as the adult in the room when things go sideways is compromised by any such endorsement.
The point is, when the process eventually moves to the convention, we should expect Superdelegates to do the right thing, but we can’t expect that everybody’s version of the right thing is the same. Should a Superdelegate vote in favor of the candidate that won their state? (Not all Superdelegates represent states, some are at large, but this would work for many.) Should a Superdelegate vote in favor on the candidate that is ahead nationally, regardless of how that candidate did in that delegate’s state? If Candidate A is ahead but was recently photographed sitting in a hot tub full of fruit jello with the Primier of North Korea and recorded making a deal for nuclear weapons, perhaps a Superdelegate may decide to switch allegiance to Candidate B. If a candidate does so much better during the last half of the primary process than the other candidate, does this indicate that this candidate is the people’s choice, even if the people who voted during the first half of the election aren’t really being asked? What if national polling indicates that everybody in the party has shifted preference from the winning candidate to the candidate that is behind, for some reason or another? Would these conditions mean that the right thing to do is to support the second (or third) place candidate?
And, when it is all said and done, and a given Superdelegate has made a decision that is at odds with the constituency of the home state or district for that delegate, will people remember that it is their job in our great democracy to exact vengeance and hold that delegate’s fee to the fire next chance they get?
OK, now back to Sanders’ strategy and the numbers. One of the things we hear today is how Hillary Clinton lost and Barack Obama won in 2008, even though it was assumed that Clinton would win. Also, at some point, Clinton threw in the towel and urged support for Obama. This year, it looks like Clinton is going to win the nomination, and Sanders is not, so at what point does Sanders support Clinton?
What Sanders should do, of course, is to keep his campaign running fully until the convention, though he could bow out sooner if he chooses. If, for example, he comes in second in New York and, especially, if Clinton picks up a lot of delegates there, one could not fault Sanders for shifting his support from himself to his opponent. At the same time, one can not fault him for choosing to not do that.
It has been suggested, vaguely by the Sanders campaign and interpreted by the press, that Sanders’ strategy at this point is shifting from winning the pledged delegate count to getting the Superdelegates to support him, thus giving him a win on the first ballot at the Convention. Short of this, he could get a sufficiently large subset of the Superdelegates to support him, forcing Clinton to not win on the first ballot.
After the first ballot, the pledged delegates are more or less free to vote for whom they want (though it may not be that simple and can vary by state, and there are rules that don’t exist yet pertaining to this). So if, for example, it is true (though there is no credible evidence of this) that Democrats across the nation have shifted their preference towards Sanders, even if they voted or caucused previously for Clinton, then Sanders might do well on the second ballot.
So now we come to some interesting numbers.
Each primary season is different, in terms of ordering of states, total delegates, total needed to secure a nomination, etc. etc. I looked at the Obama-Clinton race and found the moment where the total number of pledged delegates fought over was roughly at the point we are now in the Clinton-Sanders race. At that point in time, Obama had 1159 pledged delegates, and Clinton had 1059 pledged delegates, for a spread of 100 delegates.
At this point in the process, measured as stated, this year, Clinton has 1255 delegates and Sanders has 1012 delegates, for a spread of 243.
(These numbers are no perfectly matched because there is no way to do that for obvious reasons.)
Putting this another way, at this point in the process, Hillary Clinton is significantly more ahead of Bernie Sanders than Barack Obama was ahead of Hillary Clinton eight years ago.
I hasten to remind you that these numbers do not include the unpledged Superdelegates.
There are two reasons these numbers are important. First, this spread is large enough to argue against Superdelegates going into the convention with a shifted alliance towards Sanders in order to act as a control rod on a very close and dynamic race. That argument could weaken if Sanders does exceedingly well in New York, of course. The second reason is that the number of Superdelegates that would have to be convinced to make this move would be very large, probably beyond what is possible.
19% of Sanders supporters would throw Clinton under the bus
A new poll (March 24th) by Monmouth University says, “Among Democrats who support Bernie Sanders for their party’s nomination, 78% say they would vote for Clinton over Trump in November, while 12% would actually vote for Trump and 7% would not vote at all.”
The Republicans have a similar problem, where “two-thirds (68%) of voters who back Ted Cruz for the GOP nomination say they would vote for Trump in November, while 13% would vote for Clinton and 10% would not vote. Among Republicans who back John Kasich, just 50% would vote for Trump and 19% would vote for Clinton, with 22% saying they would sit out the general election.”
It is still early to attribute much meaning to such polls, but the question of the “Bernie or Bust factor has been raised, with those who don’t like to think it may be true demanding evidence, those who fear it is true somewhat exaggerating its effect.
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h2>Clinton would beat Trump
According to the same poll, “[i]n a hypothetical head-to-head race, Clinton has a putative 10 point lead – 48% to 38% for Trump. While Clinton gets the support of 89% of self described Democrats – a fairly typical partisan support level at this stage of the race – Trump can only claim the support of 73% of Republicans.”
Clinton would also beat Cruz, but Kasich would beat Clinton.
It is still early to attribute much meaning to such polls, but the question of the “Bernie or Bust factor has been raised, with those who don’t like to think it may be true demanding evidence, those who fear it is true somewhat exaggerating its effect.
Hat Tip: Doug Alder.
March 15th Democratic Primary Results: What does it mean?
I’m starting this post before any primary results are in, and I’ll add the outcome of the primaries below, where I will also compare the results to my predictions and discuss what I think this means for the overall process of the Democratic primaries. But first, I wanted to get some thoughts down to contextualize my thinking on this. I’ll publish this post now, at mid-day Tuesday, so look for an update late Tuesday night, or early Wednesday.
I like Hillary Clinton, and I often think that her presidency would be better than a Sanders presidency, with an inaugural in 2017. This is based on Hillary Clinton’s qualifications, as well as the real politick we face right now. I appreciate her life long service to liberal causes, and recognize that long before Obamacare, there was Hillarycare, and I appreciate her work on education, racial equality, family issues, and choice. I think she can beat Trump or any other Republican that is nominated, and I think she would serve well in office. I want her to be POTUS.
I like Bernie Sanders, and I often get very excited about the prospect of Sanders closing the gap and moving ahead. I think he would face bigger challenges integrating his intentions with the current political situation, but who cares about that? We need a strong progressive in the White House, and Sanders is clearly the best choice for that. I appreciate the fact that Sanders has been a hard line lefty for his entire career, and he is the candidate I want to sit down and have a beer with … to talk about the revolution. I think he can beat Trump or any other Republican that is nominated, and I think he would serve well in office. I want him to be POTUS.
I am annoyed by the Clinton campaign whenever Hillary tosses a bone to the centrists, partly because it is tossing a bone to the centrists and partly because it is ingenuous vis-a-vis her historical commitment to liberal causes. I am annoyed by Clinton supporters who rail on Sanders’ electability, especially remarks about the “Democratic Socialist” thing.
I am annoyed by the Sanders supporters who have bought hook line and sinker the GOP anti-Clinton talking points that the Republicans have been developing for decades, and those who claim “Sanders or bust.” I am annoyed at the Sanders campaign for not doing enough to keep the conversation on task (beating the Republicans), allowing this subset of supporters to do the campaign’s bidding in a way the campaign would not do itself.
People who argue against Clinton by comparing the records of the two candidates habitually make a critical error (other than buying the GOP poison as noted). Bernie Sanders is the Senator from Vermont. Vermont is the state of Maple Sugar and Good Ice Cream. People in Vermont live in underground houses and yerts. If you are a hard core progressive, and you represent Vermont, you rarely have to also represent issues or people or companies or industries or communities that are not in line with progressive thinking. In the few areas where Sanders has gone off the Progressive track, it has been because he also represents a few interests — because they are in his state — that are not progressive, such as with respect to gun ownership or dealing with toxic waste, etc. A Bernie Sanders clone, with the same values and all that, representing a larger, more diverse, more complicated state would have a voting and legislative record that is very different from the one he has. Clinton, on the other hand, was the first lady to a president that moved hard to the center. She was the Secretary of State for a president who developed an effective, but not entirely progressive, foreign policy that overlapped a lot with an energy policy that was brilliant in every way except one: It did not keep the Carbon in the ground. (Very important.) This makes the comparison internally very biased before any careful analysis can happen, and that bias is rarely considered.
People who argue against Sanders on the ground that he is not going to get anything done, or because of a political label with a version of the word “socialist” in it, underestimate the degree to which many Americans are fed up with the current wealth-concentrating and unfair system of economy, politics, and government. They fail to recognize that the framework for the American political conversation has been pushed to the right at almost every turn since Gingrich and the Contract on America, and the one recent time it got pushed to the left, with the election of a non-white President, special circumstances applied and the fascists and racists came out of the woodwork. Many of the same individuals argue that it is good that Sanders’ candidacy has had so much support, even if he is not nominated, because it brings those progressive issues to the table. That is true. But the same argument suggests that a Sanders presidency would move that framework back from the right and towards the left even if Sanders has a non-Democratic Congress for his entire time in office. He won’t play Obama-style multi-dimensional chess, a strategy that has not gotten much done with a Republican controlled Congress. Rather, he’ll spend four or eight years yelling at the Republicans and also not getting much done, but with a potentially stronger effect. He’d move the political center to the left.
A while back I started making regular predictions of what would happen in the upcoming primaries and caucuses. Let me tell you why I did that.
I’ve been expecting, since the beginning of the primary season, for one or another thing to happen. You will recall that I repeatedly posted a graphic comparing the Clinton-Sanders popular standing in national polls with the same graph for Obama-Clinton in 2008. The idea was to show the flip between the heir apparent, Clinton, and the other guy. In the case of 2008, that happened early in the primary process. The point of showing that graphic was to remind everyone, back then, that even though Clinton was ahead in all the polls, Sanders could easily overtake Clinton and not look back, as Obama did. So, all along, one of the things I’ve been expecting is for that to happen. But, so far, it has not happened.
The other thing I’ve been expecting to happen is for Clinton to move ahead at a steady, and eventually increasing, rate, to leave Sanders in the dust. That would, of course, produce the exact opposite result, with a Clinton nomination what could have been clearly foreseen months in advance. But, so far, it has not happened.
Obviously, only one of these two things could happen, at most. I will note that those who supported one candidate or the other early on in the primary process have been pretty sure all along that the change … the Sanders surge or the Clinton juggernaut … was already happening and was about to really happen, all along. Those supporters, of either candidate, have been wrong all along. Neither has happened.
Anyway, the reason I started to develop a model of what would happen across the entire primary process has been to identify when the Clinton juggernaut, or the Sanders surge, was afoot. At which time, probably, I would declare that this thing was happening, throw my support behind the surging or juggernauting candidate, and get to work on that campaign.
With each group of primaries and caucuses, I did my best to use unbiased reasonably good empirical evidence to predict the primaries, with the idea that if a strong trend was evidence, of possibly for a given set of primaries, I’m wrong in my predictions, significantly, one way OR the other, then surging or juggernauting has commenced. But that has never happened. Clinton has been ahead the entire time, but not far, and the gap has closed. But the gap has not closed (prior to today) enough to convince me there is a surge. This is like one of those horse races where the favorite is in first place until the last furlong. Then, the second place horse runs ahead of the first place horse and wins. Or, the second place horse stays in second place and does not win. We can’t tell. There is no evidence to suggest one outcome or another at this time.
So that is why I’ve been making these predictions, to help decide what to do, as a signal to fish or cut bait. And, I continue with this effort because the outcome of every single set of primaries or caucuses has been the same: Clinton has outperformed herself and done really well where she’s won, and Sanders has outperformed himself and kept right behind Clinton where he’s won.
Make no mistake. My current empirical analysis, which has been very effective at predicting primaries and causes, still shows and has always shown an eventual Clinton nomination. But the difference between the two candidates has not been large enough to suggest that a Clinton nomination is inevitable. I’ll also add that this projection is actually what my earliest projections showed … a long and steady race with Clinton just ahead of Sanders the entire time. But, the whole idea of the Sanders candidacy is the surge, the upward swing, the crowds of revolutionary voters showing up and tipping over the cart, at some point in time. The fact that it has not happened to date does not mean it won’t happen. Also, the most recent set of primaries did in fact move Sanders closer to Clinton by a good amount, so the size of the cart that needs to be tipped is smaller, attainable.
I will note that I find myself at the moment more annoyed with that special subset of Sanders supporters who are rude and unthinking than I am with any subset of Clinton supporters with whom I regularly interact. So far, many people have taken me for a Clinton supporter or a Sanders supporter, or have been annoyed at me for not explicitly supporting their candidate (either one). But across all of this interaction, the number of Clinton supporters who gave me crap for not getting on board with Clinton is exactly one, from a trusted friend and political activist, and it was subtle, polite, and done with humor. I simply don’t find real evidence for Clinton supporters being jerks to Sanders supporters in my own personal interaction sphere, though there is plenty of that out there on-line among the Titterati and Facebookois. In contrast, I am faced with Sanders supporters who mistakingly think I’m going for Clinton, who get fairly nasty at times (again, this is that special subset of Sanderati, I hope a small percent). These special snowflakes are more likely to a) assume incorrectly whom I support, b) make incorrect assumptions about what I know and what my experience in politics may be (I once received a virtual questionnaire from a Sanders supporter demanding my background in political activism!), 3) get nasty about it, and 4) declare that if Sanders is not nominated they will do something really dumb like vote for Trump, write in Sanders, etc. So, while the level of support, depth of feeling, rational argument, etc. for each candidate within me and coming from me are even, there is this imbalance, and I find it disturbing and I don’t like it at all.
So, what will happen tonight when five sets of primary results come in? I’ve made my predictions here, but what will be the meaning of a particular outcome?
I have to check my numbers (so this paragraph might get fixed), but my estimate is that at present Clinton is ahead of Sanders in committed delegates by about 20%, but that by the end of the night according to my predictions, that gap will close to about 10%. So …
<li>- if the gap widens or closes by only a couple of percentage points, that will point to a very very likely Clinton victory, because all the different kinds of states have been sampled, half the delegates will have been assigned, and even a surge can't bring Sanders into first place.</li>
<li>- if the 10% gap (plus or minus 2%) is the result of today's contests, Sanders is still following Clinton closely enough that a true surge could cause him to overtake her, but it would have to be a big surge, and is quite possible but not that likely. Ten percent is actually a very large number if half the votes, as it were, were counted. But if this happens, I will be then in exactly the same place I am now, continuing to support both candidates, not choosing one, not sure what will ultimately happen.</li>
<li>- if the gap closes to much more than 10%, or, certainly, reverses, then the Sanders Surge some expect to see in the larger, reasonably but not very diverse, industrial, etc. etc. states is in evidence. In that case it is time to simply get behind Sanders, but NOT vilifying Clinton of course, and push for a Sanders win.</li>
I am truly excited about the prospect that, in today’s primaries, Hillary Clinton pulls ahead numerically and this becomes a one person race. I’m truly excited about the prospect that, in today’s primaries, Bernie Sanders does so well that he has an excellent chance of winning the nomination. The bias I mention above leans me slightly towards being more excited about a Clinton pull-ahead, because that would leave those special snowflake bernie bots, whom I find annoying, behind. But they are not the ones running for office, so that bias is small. But I admit it; I don’t like my support being extorted with claims that so many Sanders supporters will throw the country under the bus if they don’t get their way. I just hope that is truly a small number of individuals.
So. What happened Tuesday night?
…. to be filled in later …
And so, here is what we have…
Clinton did very well tonight. My model had predicted that Sanders would do well enough to close the gap from 20% to 10% difference, keeping him in the race. What happened instead is that the gap between the candidates, with half the votes counted, remained at 20%. In other words, this happened:
My revised model attempted to account for recent Sanders northern state victories by calculating the expected outcome with an appropriate adjustment. However, the Sanders campaign did not perform, and my predictions were relatively inaccurate. Which is sad for my model, and for Sanders.
The voting is still happening and delegates are not all assigned, and delegate counting is strange in Ohio, so my original predictions of delegate counts can’t be compared to the data we have right now, tonight. So I converted my delegates counts to percentages, and then converted the reported percentages adjusted to make Clinton and Sanders sum to 100% (because my percentages do this as well). This is what I get:
I predicted a close race in Florida. What actually happened was a Clinton landslide.
I predicted a close race in Illinois. This is correct. Clinton will likely win Illinois and pick up a few more delegates there than Sanders.
I predicted a close race in Missouri. We have a close race in Missouri. I had predicted that Sanders would win by a little, and it looks like he is going to win by a little.
I predicted a rout in North Carolina. We are getting a rout in North Carolina. Clinton will win, but not by quite as much as I had predicted.
I predicted a close race in Ohio. Clinton is doing very well there and will beat Sanders decisively. Some people will call it a landslide, some will not.
So, while I predicted three races very accurately, my model was way off for two big ones, and Sanders will end up with far fewer delegates today than expected.
Here is a histogram showing change over time, roughly divided into weeks of primary activity, in the percent difference between the candidates.
With about half the committed delegates counted and a solid 20% gap, Sanders would have to perform at 60:40 on average from now on to catch up.
Using the actual data through today (today’s delegates estimated in some cases) and the model’s prediction for the future (which still performs overall fairly well, but giving Sanders, apparently, more delegates than he is likely to get) here is what the future of this primary season looks like:
Sanders is likely to win a large number of the upcoming primaries, but probably only by a small amount, and he will continue to lose some of them by a large margin. I think it is very unlikely that he is going to achieve a 60:40 win, on average, for the rest of the race.
At this point in time, it is a near certainty that Clinton will be the nominee for the Democratic Party for President.
How Will Clinton And Sanders Do On Tuesday? (Updated)
Most polls and FiveThirtyEight predict a Clinton blow-out on Tuesday, with her winning all five states, in some cases by a large margin. My model, however, predicts that each candidate will win a subset of these states, but with Clinton still win the day.
I’ve been working on a model to predict primary outcomes for the Democratic selection process, and generally, the model has proved very effective. After each set of primaries I’ve adjusted the model to try to do a better job of predicting the upcoming contests. The most important adjustment is the one that affects the current model.
The model assumes that we can predict voting behavior by ethnicity. Given this assumption, the distribution of potential Democratic participants by ethnic group then gives the final likely division among primary voters or caucus goers across the two candidates, then this translates directly into the division of committed delegates for that state. The estimates of within-group voting are made from exit polls.
The most recent revision divides states into “Southern” (meaning deep south) and “Not Southern,” and uses different sets of numbers for each of the two kinds of states.
To date, about 32% of the committed delegates have been assigned, with 769 for Clinton and 502 for Sanders. Next Tuesday, March 15th, an additional 691 delegates will be committed to the two candidates. So, almost exactly 50% of all the delegates for the entire process will be committed. (None of this counts uncommitted delegates, sometimes called “Super Delegates.”)
If Clinton and Sanders each do about as well as they have done in the past, this will leave Sanders with a significant gap to close, and he probably can’t win the nomination. If Clinton does better, that closes the door to Sanders even more firmly. But, if Sanders does well, that may help close the gap and considering Sanders as a possible nominee is reasonable.
The current model, which has the interesting dual property of giving Sanders more delegates than the polls currently predict, but also, according to my own evaluation of my own model, probably underestimates Sanders’ performance, suggests that Clinton will earn more delegates than Sanders, but not by too much. So, if the underperformance of the model is strong enough, they could come close to a tie. At present, here are my predictions for the outcome of Tuesday’s set of primaries:
Florida: Clinton will win but by less than expected. The outcome will be so close that I can’t rule out a Sanders win here.
Illinois: Sanders will win, but this may be close to a tie.
Missouri: Sanders may win by a small margin. However, keep in mind that it is very difficult to classify Missouri as a “Southern” vs. “not-Southern” state. I picked “Not-Southern” for this prediction. But we’ll see. If Missouri goes all “Southern” then Clinton wins there.
North Carolina: Clinton will win by a very large margin (70-something to 30-something delegates).
Ohio: Sanders will win by a small margin.
UPDATED
Here is the output of the model indicating the expected number of committed delegates to be awarded on Tuesday to the two Democratic candidates:
If these numbers are close to what happens, or if Sanders does better, then Sanders is still in the race, though with a tough road ahead of him. If, in contrast, the polls turn out to be right, it would indicate that Sanders’ over performance in earlier contests may have been temporary, and the chance of him winning the primary is very small. At present the polls show Clinton way ahead in Florida, Clinton barely ahead in Illinois, a near tie in Missouri, Clinton way ahead in North Carolina, and Clinton a little ahead in Ohio. In other words, I’m suggesting that Sanders will win three out of the five races, while the polls suggest he will one or may be two.
Let’s look at the FiveThirtyEight predictions to see how they compare.
FiveThirtyEight gives Florida to clinton (nearly 100% chance of wining). They predict a strong Clinton finish in the state, about 2:1.
For Illinois, FiveThirtyEight says about the same, a better than 2:1 projected result, with Clinton carrying away a lot of the delegates.
For Missouri, FiveThirtyEight has Clinton probably winning, but not by too much, so only a small pickup for her.
For North Carolina, FiveThirtyEight has Clinton winning just shy of 2:1 over sanders.
For Ohio, FiveThirtyEight predicts a Clinton win, and a fairly strong one.
So we can see that there is a huge difference between FiveThirtyEight’s prediction and mine, and the two methods are very different. Both of the methods used by FiveThirtyEight rely on some combination of opinion or support-related information, while my method uses none of that. For this reason it is not surprising that the two methods produce very different results.
The point of going over the FiveThirtyEight predictions is that they do a very good job of representing the polling data, which overall strongly suggest that Clinton will run away with the nomination. The problem is, these data have been suggesting this since Iowa, and generally speaking, Sanders has far outperformed those estimates.
The final outcome in terms of delegates from all five races will be approximately:
Clinton: ca 364 delegates
Sanders: ca 326 delegates
This will mean that, at the end of the day Tuesday, Hillary Clinton will have about 56% of the committed delegates, to Sanders’ 44%, with about 50% of the committed delegates assigned.
Who Will Win The Democratic Primary? (Updated model)
I have been presenting various versions of a model to predict the outcome of upcoming Democratic primaries. The earlier version of the model worked like this: Make some assumptions about the ratio of voting preference (for Sanders vs. Clinton) among the different major ethnic groups, and using the known distribution of said ethnic groups, predict the future.
I started out with the assumption that among whites, the ratio would be 50:50, based on one datum, the outcome from Iowa, which is essentially a white state. I used a bias for African Americans and Hispanic voters favoring Clinton. That worked well to predict several primaries, with the caveat that what happens in Vermont and New Hampshire would be biased by favorite son effects.
The second part of the model is to update the within-ethnic group biases with further information as it became available, using primarily exit polling. At no point did polling for future races come into play except to demonstrate in advance that the model might work (by comparing polling for some Super Tuesday state polls with the model predictions).
Again, the model predicted Super Tuesday’s outcome pretty well, but there were some surprises especially in order of magnitude where Sanders won. In those states I had predicted either something close to a tie or a modest Sanders win, and he did better.
Now that there have been several other races (Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi and Michigan), with more exit polling and some more surprises (that, again, I predicted in polarity but not magnitude) I can see that the model works very well in predicting states where Clinton ultimately won, but under-estimates Sanders’ delegate take in states where he won. And, the states where the latter happens are those that are not part of the “deep south.” This indicated that both “black” and “white” voters (and maybe “hispanic” voters) are doing different things in those different states, and that ethnic mix alone is insufficient. I also considered that whether or not a primary is “open” or not may be a factor (or a primary vs. a caucus) and I’m sure this has an effect. However, the simple characterizations of “open” vs “closed” or even “caucus” vs. “primary” come nowhere close to actually capturing the real variation among these kinds of states. Plus, sadly, there is a general lack of exit polling information for some of the odder states, so the two factors (a different ethnic pattern vs. the effect of the kind of contest) can’t be compared in relation to each other.
So now I have a new model. This is exactly the same as the first model, but uses different ethnic patterns (how each ethnic group is likely to vote) for states that are “southern” (deep south, not the southwest) vs. states that are not “southern”. This could have been done by looking at the proportion of African Americans in each state to produce an adjustment, and I may well do that eventually, but for now a simple binary distinction seems appropriate. I calculated, using exit polls, ethnic patterns for these two kinds of states.
I have data for eight southern states indicating that the ratio of Clinton to Sanders support for White, Black and Hispanic should be 60-40, 88-12, and 71-29. In contrast, for non-southern states, for which I have data from six states, the ratios are 45-55, 69-31, and 46-54. Note, however, that this “black” ratio is based on only four data points, and the hispanic ratio for both types of states is based on one state each.
In other words, Black voters always favor Clinton but much more so in southern states, white voters favor Sanders in non-southern states but the reverse is true in southern states. Hispanic voters strongly favor Clinton in southern states, and mildly favor sanders in non-southern states.
Applying this model to the past, it does less well than earlier versions of the model did on the first few primaries, and better on later primaries. This may mean that there is a change in voting behavior, or simply differences in the states that happen to go earlier or later. Indeed, the current model still somewhat underestimates Sanders performance where he does well, and if the smaller number of later states (i.e, excluding Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada) is used to estimate these ratios, the White ratio is unchanged but the Black ratio works a bit less against Sanders. But at this point we have broken the data down into too-small units and are nitpicking. (By the way, if I recalculate the ratios weighing for state population size, which might be better because larger states may be better samples, there is no significant difference. More likely, a weighted average that ranks the quality of the exit polling data would be more logical and useful, but I do not have any such quality measures.)
When retrodicting previous contests with the new model, to see how well it works, the outcome isn’t too bad. It fails to predict Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, and Massachusetts, but is close. The new model predicts a 65-65 split in Michigan, which actually had a 61-69 split, so that’s wrong (but a tie is better than the wrong win.)
I could easily adjust the Sanders numbers to make the model predict the outcomes better in those states where he won, and that might be reasonable because of the status-quo part of the status-quo-ethnic model. But it would be an arbitrary adjustment with respect to the ethnic part of the model, so it is better not to.
This model retrodicts that Clinton takes 785 committed delegates and Sanders takes 536 committed delegates to date. By my count (which may vary from other counts because sometimes the delegates are counted funny) Clinton has actually won 769 and Sanders has won 502. That’s not bad, I’ll take it.
So, if this model is any good, I should be able to tell you now who will win the various races in the all-important upcoming Son of Super Tuesday, next week.
Clinton will win Florida, barely. The model projects a tiny lead for Sanders in Illinois, so that may be a tie. Clinton handily wins Missouri and North Carolina. Sanders barely wins Ohio. At the end of the day (aside, again, from delegate awarding oddities) Clinton will have added 376 committed delegates to Sanders’ 314. A Clinton win, but not a big one, is expected for next Tuesday.
Finally, according to this latest version of the status quo ethnic mix model, Clnton will win the nomination. The following graph shows the cumulative delegate count for each candidate, with the first several dates (up to yesterday’s primaries in Mississippi and Michigan) using actual committed delegate counts, and the rest using the projections from the model.
It is very important to note that this model probably underestimates Sanders’ performance in a subset of states. In other words, Sanders actual delegate count will be somewhere between the two lines shown here for a few weeks. The question then remains, can he get his line to cross Hillary’s line?
Note that in this scenario, Sanders wins both New York and California, but just by a little. If there is a handful of big states where my “just by a little” actually turns out to be “by a surprising amount” there could be a different outcome. Indeed, Sanders is expected to outperform Clinton from New York onward in many primaries, and if he does “a surprising amount” (which by then won’t seem like a surprising amount anymore) wherever possible, he could pull ahead.
Sanders can win the nomination: New Analysis
I developed a predictive model for the Democratic primaries that was designed to have the following features:
1) It does not rely on polling;
2) It does use exit polling and other information to set certain parameters;
3) It mainly uses prior primary or caucus results to predict the future, and thus assumes that the status quo is the best indicator.
4) It calculates likely voting patterns based on ethnicity (White, African American, Hispanic), and using likely Democratic party distribution among these groups to predict each contest’s outcome.
That method outperformed most other predictions for Super Tuesday and accurately predicted who would win in the four contests held over the last weekend. However, in states that Sanders won last weekend, and in at least two of the Super Tuesday results, the method underestimated how well Sanders would do. Notably, the numbers used to predict those primaries accurately predicted how Clinton would do in Louisiana, and generally.
In other words, mostly, where Clinton won, the model was accurate, but where Sanders won, Sanders did better than expected, not counting “favorite son” states where he did even better.
The most likely reason for the difference between prediction and reality over last weekend, since this is a status quo poll, is a change in voting patterns. In other words, it is possible that Sanders is picking up some momentum. That does not explain why the largest of the primaries, Louisiana, fit the predicted pattern while the others do not.
A second possibility is that Sanders outperforms expectations in caucus states. That seems almost certainly a factor, which I can not explain.
A third possibility is crossover voting or independents favoring Sanders in some, but not all, states. If Republicans are voting in the Democratic contest, or independents are showing up at the Democratic events, specifically because they want to vote for Sanders, that could explain a localized Sanders surge. This does not do well explaining last weekend’s results, because Sanders won in closed caucuses. But, it could explain some earlier results, such as Massachusetts and Minnesota. I know for a fact that some Republicans and a lot of “independents” (as in, “I never did this before, see how independent I am”) voters showed up in the Minnesota caucus. The question remains, of course, where were these voters in Louisiana?
One explanation for this may be that the indies and centrists in more conservative southern states, which also happen to have a lot of pro-Clinton African American voters, are mostly registered Republicans or chose to participate in the Republican rather than Democratic process, while similar voters in less conservative or liberal states were already more likely to be Democrats or to at least participate this year in the Democratic primaries or caucuses. Differences in voter turnout across states seem to conform to this pattern.
Last weekend barely added enough data to consider revising the model. Assuming that the status quo method still works, but with somewhat adjusted numbers to match Sanders wins so far, and combining projections into the future with primary results so far, this model now puts Sanders on top at the very end of the primary process, like this:
I quickly add that I don’t have a lot more confidence in this projection than the previously developed projection that has Clinton winning. But this new projection is important because it accounts for what might be recent changes in how people are voting.
Michigan’s primary, to be held tomorrow, is important. Michigan is relatively diverse, and is northern (less conservative, etc.). The modified model predicts that Sanders will swamp Clinton in Michigan, picking up over 70 delegates to Clinton’s low-fifties. In contrast, the previous iteration of the model predicts that Clinton will win with about 66 delegates and Sanders will pick up a healthy 60 or so.
Michigan’s contest is a primary, not a caucus, but it is open, so cross-party activity is possible.
Michigan will be a test between the two models, the older one that ultimately favored Clinton, and the revised (but far less certain) one that suggests that Sanders could eek out a victory.
Michigan plus last weekend’s contests combined will give me enough data to produce The Model of Models which will accurately predict the outcome of primaries coming up in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Or not. We’ll see. It is possible that I’ll add an element to the model, using one set of assumptions for red states, another set for blue states.
One week after Michigan, Son of Super Tuesday happens. If either one of the candidates is very strong on that day, that may finish off the other candidate. The actual number of committed delegates is not too different between the two candidates, and the so-called “Super Delegates” will probably be obligated to go with whoever enters the Convention with the most delegates.
Democratic Primary Results: Predicted vs actual (Updated with Maine)
Yesterday, the Democrats held three contests, in Louisiana, Nebraska and Kansas. I had predicted a Sanders win in Nebraska and Kansas, and a Clinton win in Louisiana, using my ever-evolving ethnicity-based projection model. Those predictions came to fruition. Like this:
Predicted on top, Actual on bottom.
Clinton did a bit better than projected in Louisiana, and Sanders did a bit better in Nebraska, but much better in Kansas than predicted.
I had projected the final delegate count to be 60:49 (Clinton:Sanders) for that day, and it turned out to be 55:49 (Clinton:Sanders). The difference is primarily in the number of actual delegates awarded to the candidate between what my model assumed and what the states (Louisiana) actually did. Overall, I’d say that the model, which currently predicts Clinton reaching lock-in on delegate count in mid or late April, is accurate, but with enough of a difference to allow for Sanders to close the gap somewhat. At this point, though, Sanders will have to start performing better in order to catch up.
Lately we’ve seen a discussion that runs something like this. Clinton is winning in states where a Democrat is unlikely to lose, and Sanders is doing well in states where a Democrat is likely to lose. Therefor, Clinton would lose the general election, and Sanders would win it.
This proposition fails to take into account that for the most part the two candidates are interchangeable at the level of the general election. All those people who preferred one candidate in the primary will prefer the other candidate in the general, should that other candidate win the nomination. The only way for Sanders to beat Clinton is to start winning more delegates than the model projects, and soon.
Sanders’ better than predicted performance yesterday is not enough for him to overtake Clinton, but perhaps it is a sign that he is increasing his performance. Every primary or caucus is a test of the running hypothesis of status quo, and at the moment, status quo gives Clinton the nomination. Sanders will have to start falsifying that hypothesis very soon. There is no reason to say that will happen, or not happen, at this time.
By the way, a similar model (using the status quo as the determining factor in making predictions, but with no ethnic adjustment) for the Republican party predicts that Trump will lock in the nomination late enough in the process that he could actually fail to do so if his performance falters. The possibility of a brokered Republican convention is very real.
That is not the case, probably, for the Democratic convention, as the uncommitted delegates (called Super Delegates) will likely vote for the winner at the end of the process, to lock in that candidate.
UPDATE: Today, Sanders won in Maine. I had predicted a Sanders win, though Bernie got more delegates than my model had suggested.
Predicted on top, Actual on bottom.
The Delegate total for this weekend is now 72:62 Clinton Sanders predicted, 62:64 Clinton Sanders actualized.
I will assume that the extra strong showing by Sanders in Maine is partly a result of the Favorite Son effect, and not adjust the model. Mississippi and Michigan, in just a couple of days, together with this weekend’s contests, should provide excellent calibration in preparation for primaries if Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio.
The Sanders Hypothesis: This Weekend’s Primaries
This weekend there are Democratic Party primaries or caucuses in Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Maine and Puerto Rico. The model I developed for predicting primary and caucus outcomes indicates the following results as most likely:
Sanders is losing the primaries, so far, and Clinton is on the path to victory. However, Sanders has a fair amount of time to catch up. Perhaps he just needs his strategy to take hold. The idea was to have a revolution, which in this case, means a lot of people show up. A lot of people did show up, but not enough. Sanders needs to get the rest of them to show up in these states! (My model only addresses states, sorry Puerto Rico, and yes, you should be a state).
So, in a way, this weekend’s events are individual tests for the hypothesis that Sanders can pull his nuts out of the fire and catch up to Clinton. (Unlike Republicans, we speak not of genitalia here, but rather, chestnuts. Roasting. In the open fire of politics. You’ve heard the expression, right?)
This could be a good weekend for Sanders in terms of victories. I’m predicting he takes Nebraska, possibly Kansas, and certainly Maine. Three wins all at once will invigorate his campaign.
However, note that these numbers are from a model that predicts a Clinton lock on the nomination by mid April. A sign that Sanders is doing better than that projection would be doing less badly in Louisiana, and significantly better in Nebraska and Kansas. I don’t think doing better than projected in Maine will mean much, because there is a probably favorite son effect there.
Whom Should I Vote For: Clinton or Sanders?
You may be asking yourself the same question, especially if, like me, you vote on Tuesday, March 1st.
For some of us, a related question is which of the two is likely to win the nomination.
If one of the two is highly likely to win the nomination, then it may be smart to vote for that candidate in order to add to the momentum effect and, frankly, to end the internecine fighting and eating of young within the party sooner. If, however, one of the two is only somewhat likely to win the nomination, and your preference is for the one slightly more likely to lose, then you better vote for the projected loser so they become the winner!
National polls of who is ahead have been unreliable, and also, relying on those polls obviates the democratic process, so they should be considered but not used to drive one’s choice. However, a number of primaries have already happened, so there is some information from those contests to help estimate what might happen in the future. On the other hand, there have been only a few primaries so far. Making a choice based wholly or in part on who is likely to win is better left until after Super Tuesday, when there will be more data. But, circling back to the original question, that does not help those of us voting in two days, does it?
Let’s look at the primaries so far.
Overall, Sanders has done better than polls might have suggested weeks before the primaries started. This tell us that his insurgency is valid and should be paid attention to.
There has been a lot of talk about which candidate is electable vs. not, and about theoretical match-ups with Trump or other GOP candidates. If you look at ALL the match-ups, instead one cherry picked match-up the supporter of one or the other candidate might pick, both candidates do OK against the GOP. Also, such early theoretical match-ups are probably very unreliable. So, best to ignore them.
Iowa told us that the two candidates are roughly matched.
New Hampshire confirmed that the two candidates are roughly matched, given that Sanders has a partial “favorite son” effect going in the Granite State.
Nevada confirmed, again, that the two candidates are roughly matched, because the difference wasn’t great between the two.
So far, given those three races, in combination with exit polls, we can surmise that among White voters, the two candidates are roughly matched, but with Sanders doing better with younger voters, and Clinton doing better with older voters.
The good news for Sanders about younger voters is that he is bringing people into the process, which means more voters, and that is good. The bad news is two part: 1) Younger voters are unreliable. They were supposed to elect Kerry, but never showed up, for example; and 2) Some (a small number, I hope) of Sanders’ younger voters claim that they will abandon the race, or the Democrats, if their candidate does not win, write in Sanders, vote for Trump, or some other idiotic thing. So, if Clinton ends up being the nominee, thanks Bernie, but really, no thanks.
Then came South Carolina. Before South Carolina, we knew that there were two likely outcomes down the road starting with this first southern state. One is that expectations surrounding Clinton’s campaign would be confirmed, and she would do about 70-30 among African American voters, which in the end would give her a likely win in the primary. The other possibility is that Sanders would close this ethnic gap, which, given his support among men and white voters, could allow him to win the primary.
What happened in South Carolina is that Clinton did way better than even those optimistic predictions suggested. This is not good for Sanders.
Some have claimed that South Carolina was an aberration. But, that claim is being made only by Sanders supporters, and only after the fact. Also, the claim is largely bogus because it suggests that somehow Democratic and especially African American Democratic voters are somehow conservative southern yahoos, and that is why they voted so heavily in favor of Clinton. But really, there is no reason to suggest that Democratic African American voters aren’t reasonably well represented by South Carolina.
In addition to that, polling for other southern states conforms pretty closely to expectations based on the actual results for South Carolina.
I developed an ethnic-based model for the Democratic primary (see this for an earlier version). The idea of the model is simple. Most of the variation we will ultimately observe among the states in voting patterns for the two candidates will be explained by the ethnic mix in each state. This is certainly an oversimplification, but has a good chance of working given that before breaking out voters by ethnicity, we are subsetting them by party affiliation. So this is not how White, Black and Hispanic people will vote across the states, but rather, how White, Black and Hispanic Democrats will vote across the state. I’m pretty confident that this is a useful model.
My model has two versions (chosen by me, there could be many other versions), one giving Sanders’ strategy a nod by having him do 10% better among white voters, but only 60-40 among non-white voters. The Clinton-favored strategy gives Clinton 50-50 among white voters, and a strong advantage among African American voters, based on South Carolina’s results and polling, of 86-14%. Clinton also has a small advantage among Hispanic voters (based mainly on polls) with a 57:43% mix.
These are the numbers I’ve settled on today, after South Carolina. But, I will adjust these numbers after Super Tuesday, and at that point, I’ll have some real confidence in the model. But, at the moment, the model seems to be potentially useful, and I’ll be happy to tell you why.
First, let us dispose of some of the circular logic. Given both polls and South Carolina’s results, the model, based partly on South Carolina, predicts South Carolina pretty well using the Clinton-favored version (not the Sanders-favored version), with a predicted cf. actual outcome of 34:19% cf 39:14% This is obviously not an independent prediction, but rather a calibration. The Sanders-favored model predicts an even outcome of 27:26%.
The following table shows the likely results for the Clinton-favored and Sanders-favored model in each state having a primary on Tuesday.
The two columns on the right are estimates from polling where available. This is highly variable in quality and should be used cautiously. I highlighted the Clinton- or Sanders-favored model that most closely matches the polling. The matches are generally very close. This strongly suggests that the Clinton-favored version of the model essentially works, even given the limited information, and simplicity of the model.
Please note that in both the Clinton- and Sanders-favored model, Clinton wins the day on Tuesday, but only barely for the Sanders-favored model (note that territories are not considered here).
I applied the same model over the entire primary season (states only) to produce two graphs, shown below.
The Clinton-favored model has Clinton pulling ahead in committed delegate (I ignore Super Delegates, who are not committed) on Tuesday, then widens her lead over time, winning handily. The Sanders-favored model projects a horserace, where the two candidates are ridiculously close for the entire election.
So, who am I going to voter for?
I like both candidates. The current model suggests I should vote for Clinton because she is going to pull ahead, and it is better to vote for the likely winner, since I like them both, so that person gets more momentum (a tiny fraction of momentum, given one vote, but still…). On the other hand, a Sanders insurgency would be revolutionary and change the world in interesting ways, and for that to happen, Sanders needs as many votes on Tuesday as possible.
It is quite possible, then, that I’ll vote for Sanders, then work hard for Hillary if Super Tuesday confirms the Clinton favored model. That is how I am leaning now, having made that decision while typing the first few words of this very paragraph.
Or I could change my mind.
Either way, I want to see people stop being so mean to the candidate they are not supporting. That is only going to hurt, and be a regretful decision, if your candidate is not the chosen one. Also, you are annoying the heck out of everyone else. So just stop, OK?